Spinach Caprese Quesadilla
While at work yesterday, my mind kept drifting to dinner–but nothing was sounding good to me. Since I have an abundance of tomatoes and basil (thank you backyard garden for your fruitfulness 🙂 ) I decided to do something caprese inspired.
Caprese is one of my all-time favorite Italian dishes, and it typically consists of tomato, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil.
Before diving into to the caprese, I got to work on some brussel sprouts. I halved 10 brussel sprouts, trimmed down any rough ends of the stem, and then made a small slit down the core of each sprout half. I read that making this little slit on the rougher part of the sprout helps to ensure even cooking. I put the sprouts on a cookie sheet that was liberally sprayed with cooking spray, then seasoned them with S&P, and gave them a good toss before throwing them into a 415 degree oven for 17 minutes.
Brussel sprouts!
Now onto the caprese! First, I sliced up 1 roma tomato and 1 Sargento light mozzarella string cheese and put them into a bowl:
Then, I drizzled the tomato and mozzarella with 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar and a 1/2 tsp olive oil and sprinkled with some salt and pepper. Next I added 3 sliced up fresh basil leaves and tossed everything to coat.
Meanwhile, I topped a Mama Lupe’s Low Carb tortilla with some fresh spinach and topped with the tomato mozzarella mixture:
I topped this off with a second Mama Lupe’s low carb tortilla, then I popped this baby onto the George foreman grill for about 5 minutes (until the tortilla was crisp and the cheese was melty):
None of these pictures do the quesadilla justice! If you like caprese, you will love this:
I’m hoping I get some tips on taking pictures of food indoors at the Healthy Living Summit! I can never seem to get indoor pictures quite right!
By the way, if you love caprese too check out the recipe I tried for hot caprese! I also added a “rating” scale to my recipe page 
Stats on dinner: 325 calories, 43g carbs, 12g fat, 20g protein, 14g fiber
A few hours after dinner, it was time for my night time snack. I was craving a green monster smoothie, so I put the following into the blender:
- 1/4 cup Stonyfield Farms Fat Free Yogurt
- 1/2 cup Almond Breeze unsweetened vanilla almond milk
- 2 cups spinach
- 1/2 cup fresh frozen strawberries
- 1/2 cup fresh frozen blueberries
- 1 packet Truvia
- 1 ice cube
Green Monster:
This guy was so much GREENER in person than in these photos… my camera was being stubborn last night!
Stats on the green monster: 119 calories, 24g carbs, 2g fat, 8g protein, 6g fiber
Question: what’s your favorite “healthified” Italian dish?
Saturday eggs, smoothies, & tuna salad
This morning I woke up bright and early to try and pick up on my interval running (even though I had already decided to take a week off of high-impact excercise)… I was able to get 1.5 intervals in before my knee started hurting 🙁 Looks like I’m going to be in the walking group at the Healthy Living Summit.
Breakfast of champions
After my disappointing run, I wanted a delicious breakfast to perk me up. I cooked up 1 egg sunny side up, and had a piece of Country Hearth 12 Grain bread with sunflowers and a half a cup of oven baked potatoes:
Why are egg yolks SOOOO delicious tasting? I find them oddly decadent!
Stats: 250 calories, 37g carbs, 7g fat, 12g protein, 2g fiber
Soon after downing this delicious breakfast, I was already feeling hungry and decided to make a fruit smoothie.
I threw the following into the blender:
- 1 container Yoplait Strawberry Greek Yogurt
- 1/2 cup Almond Breeze unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
- 1/4 cup fresh blueberries
- 6 medium strawberries
- 1 cup fresh spinach
- 1/2 cup ice
This puppy definitely filled my belly up!
Stats on my smoothie: 199 calories, 32g carbs, 2g fat, 14g protein, 4g fiber
After watching me down my smoothie, Jarrod got jealous and decided he wanted a smoothie too. So we threw the following into the blender:
- 1 scoop optimum nutrition whey chocolate protein
- 1/2 cup frozen sliced bananas
- 1 tbsp JIF peanut butter
- 1/4 cup ground-up quick oats
- 1/2 cup Almond Breeze unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
- 1/2 cup ice
This doesn’t look like much, but I tried a sip and it was AMAZING:
Tasted like a shake you’d get at a hamburger stand. I’m going to try and make a lower-calorie version sometime!
Stats on Jarrod’s chocolate peanut butter banana smoothie: 377 calories, 39g carbs, 12g fat, 33g protein, 6g fiber
Lunch
A little before lunch, I headed over to my mom’s house for some quality time with the fam. Just as I was about to leave, I locked my keys in my trunk… 😯 What am I, 16 again? When I was younger, I had the joy of consistently locking my keys in my car. Actually, the day I first got my license I locked my keys in my trunk and had to have my dad come rescue me…. Oh joy….
Once I got the key situation all worked out, I headed home to make a tuna wrap for lunch. Here’s what went into the tuna salad:
- 1 can chunk light tuna in water, drained
- 1/4 cup red onion
- 1/2 a chopped roma tomato
- 1 tbsp Ken’s Steakhouse Lite Creamy Ceaser Dressing
- S&P
Then I added a few slices of a ginormous banana pepper I grew in my backyard garden:
I put the tuna salad atop a Light Flat-out Italian wrap with 1 cup of spinach:
Then I wrapped everything up burrito-style and grilled on the george foreman grill for about 5 minutes:
DELICIOUS.
Stats on the tuna wrap: 282 calories, 28g carbs, 9g fat, 32g protein, 12g fiber
I’m hoping to try out a new recipe for dinner tonight.. I have a few ideas in mind. Maybe a nap will help things come to fruition 🙂
Saturday eggs, smoothies, & tuna salad
This morning I woke up bright and early to try and pick up on my interval running (even though I had already decided to take a week off of high-impact excercise)… I was able to get 1.5 intervals in before my knee started hurting 🙁 Looks like I’m going to be in the walking group at the Healthy Living Summit.
Breakfast of champions
After my disappointing run, I wanted a delicious breakfast to perk me up. I cooked up 1 egg sunny side up, and had a piece of Country Hearth 12 Grain bread with sunflowers and a half a cup of oven baked potatoes:
Why are egg yolks SOOOO delicious tasting? I find them oddly decadent!
Stats: 250 calories, 37g carbs, 7g fat, 12g protein, 2g fiber
Soon after downing this delicious breakfast, I was already feeling hungry and decided to make a fruit smoothie.
I threw the following into the blender:
- 1 container Yoplait Strawberry Greek Yogurt
- 1/2 cup Almond Breeze unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
- 1/4 cup fresh blueberries
- 6 medium strawberries
- 1 cup fresh spinach
- 1/2 cup ice
This puppy definitely filled my belly up!
Stats on my smoothie: 199 calories, 32g carbs, 2g fat, 14g protein, 4g fiber
After watching me down my smoothie, Jarrod got jealous and decided he wanted a smoothie too. So we threw the following into the blender:
- 1 scoop optimum nutrition whey chocolate protein
- 1/2 cup frozen sliced bananas
- 1 tbsp JIF peanut butter
- 1/4 cup ground-up quick oats
- 1/2 cup Almond Breeze unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
- 1/2 cup ice
This doesn’t look like much, but I tried a sip and it was AMAZING:
Tasted like a shake you’d get at a hamburger stand. I’m going to try and make a lower-calorie version sometime!
Stats on Jarrod’s chocolate peanut butter banana smoothie: 377 calories, 39g carbs, 12g fat, 33g protein, 6g fiber
Lunch
A little before lunch, I headed over to my mom’s house for some quality time with the fam. Just as I was about to leave, I locked my keys in my trunk… 😯 What am I, 16 again? When I was younger, I had the joy of consistently locking my keys in my car. Actually, the day I first got my license I locked my keys in my trunk and had to have my dad come rescue me…. Oh joy….
Once I got the key situation all worked out, I headed home to make a tuna wrap for lunch. Here’s what went into the tuna salad:
- 1 can chunk light tuna in water, drained
- 1/4 cup red onion
- 1/2 a chopped roma tomato
- 1 tbsp Ken’s Steakhouse Lite Creamy Ceaser Dressing
- S&P
Then I added a few slices of a ginormous banana pepper I grew in my backyard garden:
I put the tuna salad atop a Light Flat-out Italian wrap with 1 cup of spinach:
Then I wrapped everything up burrito-style and grilled on the george foreman grill for about 5 minutes:
DELICIOUS.
Stats on the tuna wrap: 282 calories, 28g carbs, 9g fat, 32g protein, 12g fiber
I’m hoping to try out a new recipe for dinner tonight.. I have a few ideas in mind. Maybe a nap will help things come to fruition 🙂
A Truly Green Monster
Maybe it was all the green grass around me, but all I could think about while mowing the lawn this afternoon was making a giant green monster!
Into the blender:
- 10 small fresh strawberries
- 1/2 cup unsweetened almond breeze vanilla almond milk
- 2 packets Truvia
- 2 cups spinach
- ICE
- 1 tbsp oikos plain yogurt (would have used more, but that’s all that was left in the container)
Gave it a thorough immulsification:
That is a seriously green monster smoothie:
Stats on the GM: 64 calories, 15g carbs, 2g fat, 4g protein, 3g fiber
Pita Pizza & a Green Monster
Some nights I am really amped to try out a new recipe…. And some nights, I just want pizza. Tonight was one of THOSE nights.
I decided to use a Joseph’s Middle East Bakery Low Carb pita as my base. I topped that off with:
- 1/4 cup Classico Fire Roasted/Tomato Garlic spaghetti sauce
- Sprinkling of garlic powder, onion powder, dried parsley, dried oregano, black pepper, and red pepper flakes
- 1 ounce thinly sliced grilled chicken (leftover from the batch I grilled up sunday night)
- 1 light babybel cheese sliced into four super thin discs
- 1 tbsp fat free ricotta
- thinly sliced red onion
- a couple thinly sliced cherry tomatoes
Popped it into a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes. Then, I topped it with some chopped basil from the back yard garden:
I served the pizza up with a side salad that consisted of romaine, cherry tomatoes, red onion, banana peppers, and 2 tbsp Ken’s Steakhouse Lite Northern Italian dressing with Basil and Romano:
The salad was delicious. That Ken sure does know a thing or two about dressings 😉
And the pizza was.. in a word… Umm…. YUM. Ok, that’s two words, but regardless this pizza really hit the spot:
Soooo goood!!! Why don’t I make pizza more often?!
Check out this huge banana pepper I’ve got growing in the back yard:
He might have to go on my next salad 🙂
Stats on the pizza: 197 calories, 20g carbs, 6g fat, 20g protein, 5g fiber
Stats on the salad: 97 calories, 13g carbs, 5g fat, 3g protein, 4g fiber
All together now: 294 calories, 33g carbs, 11g fat, 23g protein, 9g fiber
I’ve previously eluded to the fact that I’m a messy cook. Given the simplicity of my dinner tonight, you’d probably assume that my kitchen would be in pretty good shape. Whelp, you’d be wrong!
Take a look at this monstrosity:
I wish I were kidding. Can you imagine the disasters I could create if I had a big kitchen?
After dinner, I couldn’t wait for late-night snack time to roll around. I decided earlier in the day that I’d make up a green monster smoothie for my snack to give me lots of energy for my run in the morning.
Threw the following into the blender:
- 1/2 cup Almond Breeze Unsweetened Almond Milk
- 1/4 cup Oikos plain Greek Yogurt
- 1 packet Truvia (stevia) all natural sweetener
- 1/2 cup fresh frozen strawberries
- 1/4 cup fresh blueberries
- 1 cup fresh SPINACH
- 3 ice cubes
It’s green. It’s delicious.
Mmmmm…
Thankfully, the green monster gave me the energy I needed to clean up that disaster kitchen:
Stats on the green monster: 105 calories, 18g carbs, 2g fat, 9g protein, 5g fiber
Blog Updates
I recently updated my About Me page to incorporate some comments I had posted on the blog. I also added a Foodie Q&A page where I plan to keep a running list of questions readers ask. And as always, I am continuously linking all my recipe posts to the Recipe Page. This page is actually getting pretty long, so I think I’ll be reformatting it in the near future.